The Manx Labour Party says it stands 'resolutely' with healthcare being free at the point of use and a 'strongly resists' charges being introduced or services cut.
It comes as Manx Care warns of 'unpalatable decisions' being made in order to balance the books.
The political party is calling for a renewed look at tax reform, saying thresholds for higher earners have been left untouched whilst workers bear an 'unequal burden'.
In this edition of Newscast, Party leader and DHSC Member Joney Faragher tells Manx Radio why the MLP believes Manx Care is underfunded, not overbudget.
First of all, to obviously state that I'm a member for the Department of Health and Social Care and Political Member. And I have been, I was elected basically, ever since the departmental political team performed. So there's a lot of background there that I have that other people might not have access to. We've seen, as you've alluded to, we've seen Manx Care recently basically saying that they're going to reduce selective surgery and there's been a lot of narrative around how they have to balance the books. There's also been a lot of narrative from government that they are over budget and it is our position that they are underfunded and that they have been for many years rather than over budget and actually that is a position that's backed by the Sir Jonathan Michael report and the calculations that he gave for the funding formula that were approved by Tim Hall in 2019 along with the rest of Sir Jonathan Michael's recommendations which included significant transformation and improvement work that Manx Care were tasked with delivering for the Manx public but they weren't given the funding formula from when they were formed. So therefore that's resulted in them being underfunded in tune of millions actually and that is a narrative that does need to be more discussed and more widely known actually. Something the taxpayer will immediately think when they hear additional funding for Manx Care is well how much is that going to cost me extra but you're talking about tax reform as well how would that work in real terms? Manx Labor Party has always obviously stood for progressive taxation which is a system in which the people with the broadest financial shoulders the wealthiest people essentially pay more than the poorest in our society but there are also a lot of other ways that Treasury could look to a raising additional revenue that they don't ever seem to look at you know capital gains inheritance raising the tax cap there just does seem to be this very very fixed mindset that the only way that we can raise revenues by taxing workers and that's created quite an imbalance on our island and I think in the last budget when the Treasury did added additional 2% onto the highest tax spend and didn't change thresholds that has created quite an unfair situation quite an unequal situation essentially for Manx workers and so we absolutely would not want to see Manx workers taxed anymore and I really do think we're at the limit there and it would not be fair at all it would not be equitable to put any more of the financial burden upon workers but there are several ways that can be explored by Treasury as authority mentioned and I really do think that this is the time that we need to start looking at additional sources of revenue I mean it's a difficult decision for people to make and you know it could be in my view something that needs to go out to the Manx public do we want to retain a free at the point of use model or do we want to actually start paying for our surgery when we go in for it and that you know that's very fundamental to our core values as Manx Labor Party we believe that everybody should have access to health services and in order to get that model working we need to have the revenue behind it and what are your concerns what the party's concerns then if those if those things such as tax thresholds aren't looked at and we continue down a route of service cuts as you've seen what's the worst case scenario well I mean I think Manx care have been quite clear in their board meetings that this will impact patient outcomes and they've chosen the reduction in elective surgery option is their first one because that's got minimal impact actually on patient outcomes and they will always you know they will always look to what is the best clinical solution here what is the best solution that we can come up with to meet patient's needs and but ultimately if they are pushed more and more down the avenue of you have to stay within your funding envelope there will not be any more money then that will impact patient outcomes if we're not doing a lot of the preventative work then the acute work becomes bigger and bigger and it costs more so it's actually very short-sighted to undefund health services because actually it's in everybody's interest to keep our population healthy rather than to work up in in that area of acute care where you are actually firefighting instead of fire preventing and I think that's you know that that really is quite a core value that should be a core value of our national health service of and I think it is a core value of the board members as far as I can see having you know listened to the minutes there is not a single member there who wants to cut services they know the best thing for patients but if they are being pushed into a situation where they can't afford to run those services and they won't have access to any further funding that I don't see any other choice that they can make unless the council ministers choose to start charging for services which will fundamentally change our health service there are some on the island of course who will say well we spend so much money elsewhere in terms of things like climate change could we reallocate some funds and help health that way I mean I'm not a member of for Treasury so I couldn't 100 answer that question um you did mention climate change though there's not very much being spent on that and actually if we don't meet our climate targets it's going to be quite detrimental for the island in terms of businesses who will have their own pathway to net zero and that's part of their social responsibility ethos and framework and if we don't have our own path to net zero we will lose a lot of businesses so actually economically it doesn't make sense to reallocate climate change funds the potentially is but I think that budgets are tight everywhere and I just think that we need to discuss this as a community that we need to have more open and frank conversations about where we are financially and what we want our public services to
